updated 06:40 pm EDT, Tue April 10, 2012

Capacities range from 32GB to 256GB

Micron has announced that it has expanded its SSD lineup to include mSATA models geared for ultrathin notebooks. The new drives are based on the company's existing RealSSD C400 drives, but with a Mini SATA connector and stripped away housing for notebooks that require a 3cm x 5cm footprint.

The new mSATA SSD is built with a SATA 6 Gb/s controller, though the actual performance is claimed to reach 500 MB/s and 260 MB/s during sequential read and write operations, respectively.

The drives will be available in capacities ranging from 32GB to 256GB, with lower capacities geared for dual-drive configurations that rely on an SSD for improved boot times and file caching. Larger capacities are designed for small ultrathin systems, such as the latest MacBook Airs, that omit a standard hard drive.